High-Performance Wood–Plastic Composites Based on Self-Assembly Sandwich-Like 2D/2D MMT/Zn<sup>2+</sup>-MEL-PA Supramolecular Structure: Enhanced Mechanical and Flame-Retardant Properties
Ruofan Yang, Yiqun Fang, Yiqing Fu, Jinghang Zhu, Guilin Ren, Xiaoyan Bai, Yongming Song, Weihong Wang, Qingwen Wang
Abstract
In this work, an environmentally friendly multicomponent flame retardant denoted as a sandwich-like 2D/2D montmorillonite/Zn 2+ -MEL-PA (MMT/ZnMPA) plate was successfully synthesized through a “bottom-up” supramolecular self-assembly method, in which the ultrathin ZnMPA nanosheets were lying parallell on both sides of MMT plates. Then, the MMT/ZnMPA plate served as an excellent performance nanofiller in wood flour/polypropylene (WF/PP) composites. Microstructure characterization indicated that the MMT/ZnMPA plate had the uniform dispersion in the WF/PP composites with excellent interfacial compatibility, thereby simultaneously improving mechanical properties and flame retardancy of WF/PP composites. With the incorporation of 20 wt % MMT/ZnMPA plates, the peak heat release rate and total heat release rate were remarkably decreased by 28.1% and 17.8% in contrast to WF/PP composites. Moreover, the tensile strength and flexural strength were increased by 20.6% and 15.2% compared to WF/PP composites, respectively. This work has presented a facile tactic for integrating phosphorus and nitrogen-containing flame retardant with MMT plates to develop WF/PP composites with high mechanical and flame-retardant properties.